Swartz prosecutors face harassment and death threats

Prosecutor was sent postcard of his father's head falling from a guillotine.

The prosecutors responsible for bringing charges against Internet activist Aaron Swartz have become the target of an online harassment campaign. Swartz's family has blamed the prosecutors for his January suicide. In a court filing first reported by Wired, an assistant US attorney wrote that his bosses, Carmen Ortiz and Stephen Heymann, have faced harassment from individuals upset about their handling of the Swartz case.

"ROFLMAO just saw you were totally dox’d over the weekend by Anonymous," one e-mail to Heymann read. "How does it feel to become an enemy of the state? FYI, you might want to move out of the country and change your name."

The e-mail included Heymann's home address and telephone number.

Heymann was also sent a postcard depicting his father's head falling from a guillotine:

A similar picture was sent to Heymann's father, a professor at Harvard.

The filing says Ortiz has also received harassing communications but didn't give any examples.

The court that would have heard Swartz's case is currently considering whether to unseal documents related to his prosecution. The US attorney's office has supported the release of some information but has urged the court to continue to keep the names of some individuals involved in the case under wraps.

"Whatever additional public benefit might exist by disclosing certain names was, in this case, outweighed by the risk to those individuals of becoming targets of threats, harassment and abuse," the assistant prosecutor argued.

137 Reader Comments

File these antics under "you're not helping." Seriously, threatening and harassing people is not very effective when trying to make a statement.

Quote:

Swartz's family has blamed the prosecutors for his Jaunary suicide.

Tragic as it is, I don't see how you can blame anyone but the person who takes their own life. Sure, there are circumstances and events that may be considered contributing factors, but in every suicide there is only one person ultimately to blame.

At least with this harassment it's just a bunch of people online. If the harassment was from, say, some sort of monolithic powerful entity from which there was no escape, I can't imagine the kind of extremes those poor prosecutors would be driven to.

On the one hand, backlash is inevitable with some prosecutions and it is simply par for the course. On the other had, there can be prosecutorial misconduct that warrants a closer inspection. Unless the judge unseals the documents there is very little that outsiders can do but speculate about what actually happened. This whole situation is horrible, and I can't imagine that the prosecutors wanted this case to come to this end. The real problem seems to me to be the laws as written. If the laws were not so draconian then situations like this should not arise in the first place.

File these antics under "you're not helping." Seriously, threatening and harassing people is not very effective when trying to make a statement.

Maybe not directly, but people are going to have to get used to the idea that if you act like an asshole, there's a decent chance the internet will call you out on it. It's like a force of nature at this point, and I don't see things changing anytime soon.

File these antics under "you're not helping." Seriously, threatening and harassing people is not very effective when trying to make a statement.

Maybe not directly, but people are going to have to get used to the idea that if you act like an asshole, there's a decent chance the internet will call you out on it. It's like a force of nature at this point, and I don't see things changing anytime soon.

This whole situation is horrible, and I can't imagine that the prosecutors wanted this case to come to this end.

Prosecutors have used 'heavy handed tactics' like these for a long time. I don't have any numbers to trot out, but I have to think that only a very tiny portion of their targets respond with suicide.

No, while the prosecutorial team does have some share in the blame here, I don't know that their critics who are responding in the way that this article is describing have considered deeply enough that Aaron was ill and that that lead him to make some tragic decisions himself.

Swartz was threatened to spend most of his remaining life in prison - in a place where his kind would meet untenable, even deadly harassment.

And for what? Something that shouldn't even be a crime. The US justice system may work in theory, but in practice it is just a tool of the plutocracy, and whoever tries to challenge it will end up like Swartz. That's the message, loud and clear. There's no "justice" here, and there never will be - you can't fix the system within itself, nor ask it to undermine those that it favors.

Don't get me wrong, these asshat prosecutors deserve to have the book thrown at them for trying to bury some guy under a mountain of legal trouble and shame because he plugged into a switch and scraped some documents.. but this isn't Somalia. We have legal systems to punish those whose behavior is socially unacceptable.

Death threats against the prosecutors and their families goes too far. Write your representatives to change the laws that these prosecutors tried to use against Swartz if you really want to do something productive.

Swartz was threatened to spend most of his remaining life in prison - in a place where his kind would meet untenable, even deadly harassment.

That's simply not true. He was charged with crimes that had a maximum sentence that long, yes, but zero expectation that, even if convicted, he would be sentenced to that long. And the plea bargain offered of, what, 3 months? hardly constitutes "most of his remaining life" (if he had lived of course).

I think it's also a stretch to expect that serving most likely in minimum security prison he would be subject to deadly harassment.

I'm not going to defend our current plea bargain system, because it has some serious flaws, but let's be realistic here. Bottom line in my opinion, he engaged in conduct of questionable legality for political reasons. He should have been willing to serve time to make his points.

Honestly I have no sympathy for these "people". There was no crime committed, as data cannot be stolen as an intangible object and he had authorization to access said data anyway. The true crime was what they did to Aaron. If some deranged anon wants to mail dead cats to their house (or worse) well, there ought to be a severe penalty for abuse of power. Since Obama won't take care of this problem, perhaps reddit can solve it instead.

The fact that such a large percentage in this thread seem to think it's okay to threaten people with death threats shows just how far the members in here, and society in general, have devolved. This place is only a tiny shred more civilized than the average Yahoo news comment thread, and it gets worse all the time. I'm all for free speech, but it's a shame that society takes this ability to share their thoughts in a public forum for others to read, and shows absolutely no intelligence in their comments.

People these days literally have no sense of right or wrong, and the levels of trolling and hatred that takes place in these threads proves my point. I think what the prosecutors did to Swartz was unconscionable, but firing off death threats to those responsible is not the way to handle it. It stuns me that so many in this supposedly intelligent forum think it's okay. Makes you wonder just how smart the members of this forum are. It sounds like more and more of the Yahoo comment base are becoming Ars readers too.

Honestly I have no sympathy for these "people". There was no crime committed, as data cannot be stolen as an intangible object and he had authorization to access said data anyway. The true crime was what they did to Aaron. If some deranged anon wants to mail dead cats to their house (or worse) well, there ought to be a severe penalty for abuse of power. Since Obama won't take care of this problem, perhaps reddit can solve it instead.

"data cannot be stolen as an intangible object" is a pretty strong claim. Ignoring the word "stolen" since it's not what he was charged with, and not really the right word for this case, do you extend this to all hacking? For example, say, Chinese hacking into US businesses to obtain secret program code, blueprints, business plans, and other proprietary information?

The fact that such a large percentage in this thread seem to think it's okay to threaten people with death threats shows just how far the members in here, and society in general, have devolved. This place is only a tiny shred more civilized than the average Yahoo news comment thread, and it gets worse all the time. I'm all for free speech, but it's a shame that society takes this ability to share their thoughts in a public forum for others to read, and shows absolutely no intelligence in their comments.

People these days literally have no sense of right or wrong, and the levels of trolling and hatred that takes place in these threads proves my point. I think what the prosecutors did to Swartz was unconscionable, but firing off death threats to those responsible is not the way to handle it. It stuns me that so many in this supposedly intelligent forum think it's okay. Makes you wonder just how smart the members of this forum are. It sounds like more and more of the Yahoo comment base are becoming Ars readers too.

It is not ok to threaten people at all.

But, I think these stem more from a sense of justice rather than right/wrong.

These prosecutors are effectively untouchable and will never have to face the consequences of their actions. This causes some people to react in some very predictable ways.

Two wrongs do not make right, but that's what happens when there is no accountability.

people are going to have to get used to the idea that if you act like an asshole, there's a decent chance the internet will call you out on it.

It is one thing to have questionable behavior challenged in a public forum it is another entirely to make threats against someone who holds a different position than you.The former is the discourse we enjoy as part of a free and polite society. The latter is rank thuggery. Until we loudly and publicly shame this sort of behavior, people have little reason to take the "internet voice" seriously.

I find it hard to muster sympathy for those who try their best to ruin the lives of people charged with petty trespassing.

Most of these threats are probably baseless, but keep stepping on people and you'll eventually step on the wrong one. They had the choice, they were not the ones backed against the wall, yet they chose to keep pushing... boo hoo now that it's coming back at them. Ain't karma a bitch.

Tragic as it is, I don't see how you can blame anyone but the person who takes their own life. Sure, there are circumstances and events that may be considered contributing factors, but in every suicide there is only one person ultimately to blame.

I suppose technically you're right, but in a way that the distinction isn't necessarily helpful.

I've dealt with depression for a long time--close to two decades. It's extremely hard to understand for people who haven't experienced it, because it's simply not logical and it's different for everyone. Maybe what I'm going to say doesn't apply to everybody with depression. It certainly applies to me, and my specific type of depression (dysthymia).

Here's what I can tell you: Our brains don't work right. We simply don't respond to things the way a healthy person does. Every setback is insurmountable; every victory is insignificant. As the depression goes untreated for longer, it gets worse. Those setbacks become proof that ours is a life of being kicked when we're down, and for those of us for whom the conditions drags on for years, we lose all hope that anything better is available tomorrow.

The prosecutors are not responsible for this.

However there are also triggers; there are things that make us significantly more depressed, significantly more suicidal. Extreme stress is certainly one of those factors, and here's where the culpability of federal officials comes in: Their entire strategy is to induce as much stress as possible to avoid the bother of actually proving their case in court. "Plead guilty now or you could go to jail for a decade." It's an entire strategy built upon fear and stress, to make defending oneself such a scary proposition that people don't bother. Whether or not they would actually seek those penalties is largely irrelevant. This isn't about justice, or punishment for a crime -- it's about trying to get somebody to crack.

This is an extreme situation to go through for healthy people. It's designed to be. For those dealing with anxiety and depression, it's no surprise to me at all that it could lead to a suicide.

Prosecutors are not responsible for Aaron's depression and you're right in the sense that since he did the deed, he's ultimately responsible for his own suicide as well. But likewise there is a high probability that absent this added and completely intentional stress, he would be alive. The words we choose for that don't seem to matter much, to my mind.

I do agree that death threats and such are completely unhelpful to those who believe there needs to be actual, systemic change. At the same time I do not agree with holding that information confidential. The only way to purge this stink is to expose it to fresh air and the light of day.

And now because of people acting like this, they are afraid to release names because of potential harassment. This is the wrong way to go about bringing change to the system (I assume that's what most people are pushing for in this "Mob" - not just "for teh lulz")There are right ways of doing things and wrong things, I think death threats usually end up on the wrong side of this scale.

The prosecutors were doing their jobs. You may not agree with how effectively they did them, but then we'd pretty much nowhere if we killed everyone who sucked at least once at their jobs.

This.

Unfortunately, this may only harden the government's stance on these matters. Not to mention, it won't be fun times for the senders of these messages if they are found...

Prosecutors are the first line of THINKING in the justice system. Prosecutors CHOOSE what cases to pursue. It's not always automatic. Yes, they did have a choice. They CHOSE to prosecute Swartz like he was a major threat to society.

Stop and think about it. Swartz committed what should be a minor crime, if any. The monied interests snapped their fingers and the government acted with cruel and unusual intent. It has a chilling affect on many things we do. While I don't support making threats to federal employees, what recourse does a population have when its government has acted with such brazen corruption? When you bend the laws to the disadvantage of the population, with no recourse, then you leave no other alternative than illegal reaction.

Oh, how my heart bleeds for these poor, dear federal prosecutors. I did notice that they dropped their pending property-confiscation case against a man with a hotel property he owned free and clear. Dropped that witch hunt right after the Swartz suicide shone an ugly searchlight beam right on their antics.

Oh! Was that the glass-like sound of Sheriff John's political career shattering into a billion tiny shards?

Imagine the sympathy I would feel if I wasn't on the side of justice. And, as Richard Pryor once said, "There ain't no justice -- there's just us."

And quite a few of us feel mightily pissed off at the federal prosecutors involved in the MIT witch hunt.

Prosecutors are not responsible for Aaron's depression and you're right in the sense that since he did the deed, he's ultimately responsible for his own suicide as well. But likewise there is a high probability that absent this added and completely intentional stress, he would be alive.

Did he have a fight with his girlfriend the night before he killed himself? 'Cause, if so, would you be blaming her? Just askin'.

Tragic as it is, I don't see how you can blame anyone but the person who takes their own life. Sure, there are circumstances and events that may be considered contributing factors, but in every suicide there is only one person ultimately to blame.

I suppose technically you're right, but in a way that the distinction isn't necessarily helpful.

I've dealt with depression for a long time--close to two decades. It's extremely hard to understand for people who haven't experienced it, because it's simply not logical and it's different for everyone. Maybe what I'm going to say doesn't apply to everybody with depression. It certainly applies to me, and my specific type of depression (dysthymia).

Here's what I can tell you: Our brains don't work right. We simply don't respond to things the way a healthy person does. Every setback is insurmountable; every victory is insignificant. As the depression goes untreated for longer, it gets worse. Those setbacks become proof that ours is a life of being kicked when we're down, and for those of us for whom the conditions drags on for years, we lose all hope that anything better is available tomorrow.

The prosecutors are not responsible for this.

However there are also triggers; there are things that make us significantly more depressed, significantly more suicidal. Extreme stress is certainly one of those factors, and here's where the culpability of federal officials comes in: Their entire strategy is to induce as much stress as possible to avoid the bother of actually proving their case in court. "Plead guilty now or you could go to jail for a decade." It's an entire strategy built upon fear and stress, to make defending oneself such a scary proposition that people don't bother. Whether or not they would actually seek those penalties is largely irrelevant. This isn't about justice, or punishment for a crime -- it's about trying to get somebody to crack.

This is an extreme situation to go through for healthy people. It's designed to be. For those dealing with anxiety and depression, it's no surprise to me at all that it could lead to a suicide.

Prosecutors are not responsible for Aaron's depression and you're right in the sense that since he did the deed, he's ultimately responsible for his own suicide as well. But likewise there is a high probability that absent this added and completely intentional stress, he would be alive. The words we choose for that don't seem to matter much, to my mind.

I do agree that death threats and such are completely unhelpful to those who believe there needs to be actual, systemic change. At the same time I do not agree with holding that information confidential. The only way to purge this stink is to expose it to fresh air and the light of day.

^^ This. I have been waiting for someone to post something intelligent on depression and the situation with Aaron for a long time. Too many people commenting in the Ars threads view the situation as some sort of fucking math problem. Aaron + jail time of 35 years - likelihood of jail time - awesomeness of screwing the government + felony on your record = right/wrong decision.

Timothy B. Lee / Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times.